The Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention, and Advancement has released a report on the recent redesign of South Carolina's Mentor Training.The report, composed by Dr. Jennifer Garrett, details the reasons for the redesign, the process in which the redesign occurred, and the components that now make up the new training.

South Carolina school districts are required to provide every beginning teacher with a trained mentor to support him/her during induction. In order to become a mentor, one must complete the two-day South Carolina Mentor Training.CERRA, in partnership with the South Carolina Department of Education, recently completed a redesign of this training. Extensive research and data collection, combined with years of anecdotal evidence and expert feedback, led to the decision to redesign the mentor training.

The South Carolina Mentor Training is now a two-day training that consists of nine modules, each with one to four sections that contain in-depth information about mentoring beginning teachers and activities that allow participants to apply their new learning. Significant additions to the training include instruction on the four-step mentoring cycle, specific guidance on writing Student Learning Objectives (SLOs), and an introduction to the Coaching Dialogue Protocol. Also included in the training are instructions on how to: align a mentor’s role to the beginning teacher's needs, prepare for and conduct classroom observations, analyze observation data, give effective feedback based on the observation data, and set SMART goals that will improve practice. The training allows participants more time to apply their new learning in preparation to work with beginning teachers as effective mentors. ​